While completing the inspection day for a home I just put in contract here in Shelborne in Granite Bay, I was reminded that market shifts are not always bad. In fact, they often provide positive changes for one side of the transaction or the other, and sometimes for both sides.
During the past few years, it had become common for it to be necessary for home buyers to agree to risky terms in order to be competitive against large numbers of offers from other buyers.
One of those common concessions was that buyers would be required to accept a seller’s inspections or have no inspection period at all. Often the buyers deposit would have to be put on the line from the moment when a contract was accepted.
While we would still in many cases inspect these homes before close, it was with the understanding that the buyer’s deposit would be lost if they backed out because of the inspection, and that anything found would have to be accepted as-is.
This was quite risky, but often necessary to get an offer accepted.
One of the great benefits of the market slowing and some power reverting back to home buyers is that we can now return to the best practices we have had in most “normal” markets.
That means that we can have a 10-17 day inspection period to hire our own inspectors, review all disclosures, and renegotiate if there are major issues or even back out if there are issues beyond recourse. All while keeping the buyer's deposit safe.
I am happy to see this sanity return. It is safer for the buyers and better liability-wise for the sellers.
While selling as-is with no inspections is convenient for sellers, it is often better if the buyer knows exactly what they are buying, flaws and all.
If you have questions about this or anything else real estate related, or if you have a real estate problem I can provide a solution for, let me know. It’s what I love to do.
Posted by Patrick Hake on
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